Prioritizing line painting

[Skye]

More emphasis needs be put on line painting on roads. There are many that are so faded that it's very difficult to tell where they are. There are also some places where additional lines or markings are needed to distinguish the number of lanes.

[Rothman]

More emphasis needs be put on line painting on roads. There are many that are so faded that it's very difficult to tell where they are. There are also some places where additional lines or markings are needed to distinguish the number of lanes.

You going to pay for them?  Cyclical pavement marking contracts have doubled in price over the last few years.  Paying $4-$6m per contract now just in one NYSDOT Region.

[hbelkins]

More emphasis needs be put on line painting on roads. There are many that are so faded that it's very difficult to tell where they are. There are also some places where additional lines or markings are needed to distinguish the number of lanes.

You going to pay for them?  Cyclical pavement marking contracts have doubled in price over the last few years.  Paying $4-$6m per contract now just in one NYSDOT Region.

There was also a paint shortage last year and part of the year prior.

Kentucky has actually gone to a two- or three-year repainting cycle for some of its lesser-traveled routes.

This is in contrast to when in the 1960s and 1970s, they'd paint stripes twice a year, and the state owned and operated its own striping equipment.

Personally, I think the reflectivity has gotten worse. It's hard to see some of the stripes, even newly-painted ones on fresh asphalt, at night.

[Scott5114]

I'd like to see more thermoplastic line markings.

More emphasis needs be put on line painting on roads. There are many that are so faded that it's very difficult to tell where they are. There are also some places where additional lines or markings are needed to distinguish the number of lanes.

You going to pay for them?  Cyclical pavement marking contracts have doubled in price over the last few years.  Paying $4-$6m per contract now just in one NYSDOT Region.

I'd happily pay a few more cents per gallon of gas to be able to have lines worth a damn here in Oklahoma. Ours have the approximate appearance and durability of sidewalk chalk.

[US 89]

I'd like to see more thermoplastic line markings.

I hope you don't want to see more of the ones they used on Tech Parkway in Atlanta (assuming that is what you're talking about). Time has not been kind to those.

Fun fact: I actually have a small piece of lane tape from somewhere along that road sitting in a bin someplace. It's a little piece of Atlanta I can keep with me, I suppose.

[Bruce]

WSDOT and SDOT are pretty bad at keeping lines visible, and using reflective paint. A nighttime rainstorm (which are shockingly common in Rain City) turns the road into a free-for-all sometimes.

[hbelkins]

I'd like to see more thermoplastic line markings.

The issue with them is that they sometimes get scraped up by snowplows.

They're also slick. You can easily spin your tires on a wet stop bar.

[GaryV]

Maybe the carmakers that have "autopilot" or other such driving assistance should pay for better lane markings - they are a major beneficiary of the lanes being correctly marked. There's a lot of roads and streets where the lanes are so poorly marked that I don't know how the vehicles' lane assist can work.

[Mr. Matté]

I thought paint/markings is one of the cheapest basic type of road maintenance. Yes, you can't help if there's a shortage of supply at the plants making it, but a couple of cents per gallon is much better than having to repair or construct new surface (though the two are an apples / oranges comparison). It shouldn't break the state budget to properly restripe roads.

[RobbieL2415]

ConnDOT is inconsistent with their line painting.

Mainline expressways are now getting lines that are scored into the asphalt; literally grooving lanes into the asphalt and painting in those grooves. Ramps appear to be excluded from this
Surface state routes have them painted minus the grooves, and also use thinner broken line markings.
Exit gores get enhanced chevrons. Entrance gores, not so much.

[wanderer2575]

I thought paint/markings is one of the cheapest basic type of road maintenance. Yes, you can't help if there's a shortage of supply at the plants making it, but a couple of cents per gallon is much better than having to repair or construct new surface (though the two are an apples / oranges comparison). It shouldn't break the state budget to properly restripe roads.

Paint may be relatively cheap, but the equipment and crews to apply it aren't.

Other than lane assist, fresh painting isn't so necessary on roads where the lane divisions follow the longitudinal pavement joints.  Attention should be paid to stretches of road where that's not the case.

And this is more of a general gripe that would apply to other items, but some coordination within the road agency would help.  Example:  Last year the county repainted lane markings in my area, then shortly thereafter did concrete slab replacements on one road.  That pretty much wiped out the new paint job, so it was a waste of money.

[Rothman]

I thought paint/markings is one of the cheapest basic type of road maintenance. Yes, you can't help if there's a shortage of supply at the plants making it, but a couple of cents per gallon is much better than having to repair or construct new surface (though the two are an apples / oranges comparison). It shouldn't break the state budget to properly restripe roads.

Well...saying paint is cheaper than paving or brige work is a duh statement.  It's not a matter of exclusivity between markings and paving, either.  I've never come across that kind of dilemma in my work.

The issue now is with the cost of epoxy and paint and associated labor and equipment skyrocketing.  So, pavement marking contracts, which are at least already prioritized by DOTs, then push out other projects.  At NYSDOT, where the capital program is categorized by type of asset, this means delaying other types of safety projects.